ABC A DWTS alum talks about his elimination.
When “Dancing With the Stars” pro Sharna Burgess got an opportunity to compete on the show with her boyfriend, Brian Austin Green, the two didn’t exactly jump at the chance. However, after some discussion, they ultimately decided that it was a good time for them to compete, and so they officially inked deals to join the cast of season 30.
However, Burgess and Green quickly realized that producers wanted to focus on their relationship rather than on Green’s life story and things that he’d gone through, which wasn’t what they said they signed up for.
Now, on the October 2, 2023, episode of Cheryl Burke’s “Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans” podcast, Green opened up about being voted off the show and he says that he believes in conspiracies surrounding how that decision was made.
“I have theories,” Green said when asked why he believes he and Burgess got eliminated.
“They heavily focused on the relationship,” he stated. “But then, we were judged poorly because of those choices that were made on the production side. So, we were kind of just pawns in the middle,” he added. He went on to recall their Disney Night dance that began with a kiss and the judges told them that they were “relying too heavily” on their love story. However, that’s what producers wanted.
Here’s what you need to know:
Brian Austin Green Says Producers Have a Job to Do
One thing that Green realizes is that “Dancing With the Stars” is a television show and, despite it being in the reality genre, producers do their best to create drama, suspense, and anything else they can to keep people entertained.
“I think, at the end of the day,” everybody plays their roles,” Green continued, adding, “I think viewers don’t realize that it’s a show at the end of the day.”
And Green isn’t the only former contestant who feels this way. On the September 18, 2023, episode of “Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans,” Heather Morris said that she thinks that her elimination had more to do with “ratings” than talent.
“I think it was for ratings. It was a shocking elimination at the time,” Morris said on the podcast. “It felt like it was for ratings and they wanted more people to vote,” she added.
Meanwhile, former DWTS competitor Joey Lawrence and his younger brother, Matthew Lawrence (who was married to Burke) also talked about the show being “rigged” during an episode of their “Brotherly Love” podcast.
“I feel that there was always a lot of debate as to how much finagling was going on behind the scenes. You know, whether the audience vote and the judges’ votes, then the producers. I mean, there was certainly a scenario there that played out,” Joey Lawrence said.
Sharna Burgess Previously Revealed That She Asked to Be Eliminated From Season 30
On an episode of her “Old-ish” podcast in September 2023, Burgess revealed the reason that she feels that she and Green were eliminated from the show — and she suggests that it was actually her own doing.
“I did text someone at that time and was like, ‘hey, this isn’t what we signed up for. If this is what you want from us, you just have to eliminate us ’cause we can’t do this,” Burgess shared, adding, “And we were quickly eliminated after that.”
Burgess sat out season 31 of the show after giving birth to her first child months before the premiere. And although she was hoping to return to the show for season 32, she revealed that she wasn’t asked back.
“I wasn’t asked back to do ‘Dancing With the Stars’ this year, which was definitely a huge shock to me,” Burgess said on the same episode of her “Old-ish” podcast.
Burgess seems to have moved on from that, however, and is looking forward to other things in her life. For example, she and Green will soon be wedding planning; the two got engaged in July 2023.
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